Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to pay tribute to Professor David Cooper AO, who passed away on 18 March in Sydney. Professor Cooper dedicated his life to the prevention, treatment and cure of HIV and other infectious diseases. He made Australia a global leader in the fight against HIV/AIDS and contributed to every therapeutic drug used in HIV. His experience in the US led him to diagnose the first Australian case of HIV in 1982. His case report on HIV seroconversion illness, which defines initial HIV infection in many people, published in The Lancet in 1985, was seminal.

In 1986, Professor Cooper established the National Centre in HIV Epidemiology and Clinical Research, now known as the Kirby Institute for infection and immunity in society, and he was its inaugural director. Professor Cooper remained working in clinical trials his entire life, and his record of clinical and academic achievement was unparalleled. He was a past president of the International AIDS Society and a past chairman of the World Health Organization UNAIDS HIV Vaccine Advisory Committee. In 1996, he co-founded HIV-NAT, a clinical research and trial collaboration based in Bangkok, and was proud to be able to stand back as it became a fully independent centre of excellence and training in South-East Asia.

Professor Cooper was made an Officer in the General Division of the Order of Australia in 2003 and awarded the James Cook Medal by the Royal Society of New South Wales in 2016. He will be much missed by his family, his many friends and his colleagues.

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